Eric de Vroedt (The National Theatre)curates at SPOT-Live: 'Let's talk about love' ACTUAL

‘What we so often forget is to just talk about our love for theatre for once.' Eric de Vroedt, artistic director of The National Theatre, wants to talk about substance for once. And then with the entire performing arts sector. Soon there will be SPOT-Live, the renewed Congress of Performing Arts, and there he wants to talk about love. 'Quite by chance, it happened a month ago. The technicians were building the set for 'The World According to John' in the main hall, for the first time. I noticed it was a metre too far back. That made the picture totally different and so had to be adjusted, but I almost didn't dare ask the first inspicer.'

De Vroedt asked anyway.

'The inspicien said, "Eric, if that's what it takes for the performance, we'll do that. Then we'll finish the work and tonight, after it's over, we'll break it down completely and set it up properly." So that meant they had to redo all that day's work. They did so without grumbling, because everyone understood that it was necessary for the performance. Nobody complained about schedules or appointments.'

Crafty love

'That's the great thing about working in theatre, that everyone goes for the thing that needs to be done. People constantly rise above themselves because something beautiful is being created. It's craft love. There is romance in it. It's that arc towards the premiere. In those eight weeks, you all have one goal and that is also the only goal in your life. Everything makes sense, and everything is in the context of that. And it's also literally the case that after the premiere, you end up back in reality. Then suddenly everything is very banal and you think no one is waiting for you.'

Of course, you are also in a huge bubble. How often do you go to a museum? Do you read a book, go to demonstrations for the environment?

'Yes, it definitely is. Those eight weeks are very intense and the closer you get to the premiere, the more isolated you become. So even your marriage suffers. I could go to a demonstration rather than go to my wife, so to speak, because you demonstrate here in The Hague. I don't go to a museum at all anymore. I am very monomaniacal. So such a premiere is always very exciting for our marriage. But after such a premiere, I come back down to earth and I'm back in the world.'

Connecting to the world

'Also in the research phase, I am very much focused on the outside world. This performance, for instance, was preceded by a whole period of spending almost every day in Duindorp, watching documentaries and reading books. That is why I do this kind of project, because it allows me to seek the connection with the world. Precisely because I know I shut myself off a lot anyway.'

You want to give theatre a place in the community again. Your ambition is to turn the Koninklijke Schouwburg into a community centre. Wonderful ambition, but if you look at your own premieres, that's where The Hague's upper class is again. In the 'province', theatre is not doing too well either. What solution do you see?

'Yes. that's the key question. Because, of course, it's desperate. On bad days, I think we're all sitting around making a product that apparently nobody wants. We look at how we can put theatre differently in the city or in society. Usually that goes very well but, at the same time, we occasionally notice that things are failing miserably.'

Taboo

'It's taboo to talk about it, but at the moment the tour of The World According to John is going very badly. I've never seen such poor numbers. This is next to the overwhelming success of The Nation and We're Here for Robbie, which attracted tens of thousands of people. Maybe the title is all wrong, or the show all wrong in terms of content, but you are also looking at a bankrupt system. It also doesn't make sense that we just send our performances out into the country, and have five lines about The World According to John in a theatre season brochure. Of course then no one will come to Venlo on a Tuesday night.'

Now it seems to be only about marketing. But, of course, it also has to do with the stories you tell as a theatre company.

'At least in The Hague, people know how to find the theatre pretty well, if the offer is tailored to them. So at Surinamese comedy, the place is full of Surinamese people. At Milk and Dates by Daria Bukvić we suddenly had a lot of Moroccan girls in the room. They also found their way to The Nation. So it does happen. The only problem is that you very quickly end up in a kind of target-group theatre. And then, instead of being an institution that promotes integration, you are suddenly a segregation-enhancing machine, because those target groups don't do anything together. That's the big dilemma.'

Fantasy

'So should there be new and different stories in which multiple perspectives find a place, in which people can identify? That is not easy, but with The Nation we succeeded. That was a story in which really different groups came together.'

Also, isn't it all too close to reality? Everyone would rather watch Game of Thrones than yet another talk show where people give opinions. With theatre, shouldn't you also start giving fantasy space again?

'Maybe so. We make a lot of performances that have a lot of content, but sometimes I think: we now have Sadettin running, and A seat at my table and Our Street and The World According to John. All current affairs, all multiculturalism. I very much support these performances and these contents, I just think we should market it less thematically. The Nation was very much about multicultural society, but was also a super tense police thriller and Netflix. We need to be much smarter about fusing 'heavy thematic content' with entertaining, compelling and exciting resources and stories.'

'At the same time, as a maker, you are also trapped in your own style. People find it awkward when I suddenly bring a hilarious play like the Reunion of the Two Koreas, because, according to the press and the audience, that doesn't suit me.'

Shouldn't the theatre sector become more self-aware? Aren't you all too afraid of criticism and subsidy conditions?

'Coincidentally, we were talking about that this morning. Shouldn't we make a play like The World According to John purely for The Hague? This is where the play is rooted, this is where it catches on, so why does it have to travel to places where they have nothing to do with that story? That doesn't really make sense. We need to think fundamentally differently about travel. Important in this: we definitely want to keep travelling a lot, all over the country, but in the future in very different ways. New models need to be developed!'

'But it is difficult to say goodbye to a structure that we have worked with for a very long time and that the whole organisation thinks it depends on.'